José M. Muria
TO
other than the important city of Tequila, in the state free and sovereign of Jalisco
which gave its name to the most famous and distinguished of Mexican alcoholic beverages, there are at least two others in the east and south of our country, very small by the way, that also boast it.
I have never been there, but surely they must be rocky and with a lot of grass, the same as the Jalisco town, since this is the meaning of this word in Nahuatl: tetl, quílitl and lan.
As there is no shortage of people who want to adorn themselves without knowing well, the assertion once appeared – clearly false – that the name of such an endearing town meant place where you work
. Supposedly it came from tequio. We don’t know if this was to exalt her or denigrate her…
Apart from the fact that it would be very strange and inexplicable for a population to be named that way, it is normal that the place names were related to the terrain and not to activities that had to do with what happened when they already existed.
In fact, the drink is named not so much for what it would have been made in the same town, but rather for the whole country. corregimiento
of which it was the head, although over time, thanks to the abundance of water in the vicinity of Tequila, more taverns
.
Likewise, it is now known that it was actually in the neighborhood of the town of Amatitán where this production was first developed to satisfy and thrive on the desire to soak the gullet that Spanish drunks so required.
The truth is that, due to its quality and efficiency, the spirit that was obtained from the corresponding agaves defended itself and, over time, gained customers, despite many disfigurements and abuses by its main manufacturers.
The clearest and most recent example is the great discredit caused by the pig that was sent to the United States during the prohibition law of the 1920s and later, during the Second World War.
It took the industry many years to recover from the export disaster. More now, especially since the 90s of the last century, market circumstances have allowed, by improving quality, the doors to be opened also in Europe where, by the way, in the bad times, there were no shortage of scoundrels who called abominable spirits tequila. .
I remember a tequila called El Hat manufactured, in Spain, as it was said, with a license from Porfirio, Juárez y Co. Some attendees at a conference on tequila that I gave in Madrid were offended when I cynically invented that I had a company in Mexico that was beginning to prepare a brandy licensed by Franco, Borbón y Asociados…
Now tequila enjoys splendid health, with the help of the Regulatory Council, despite some scoundrel who worked in it, and also the corresponding Chamber, but the greatest merit is due to honest manufacturers who have done things as God intended. .
I am waiting for the latest production and sales figures to make a more careful analysis. However, one does not need to be very sharp to realize the bonanza that prevails.
